In this episode of the Proteus Leader Show, host Erika Andersen interviews Carol Schultz, founder and CEO of Vertical Elevation and author of Powered by People. Schultz explains how organizations can align talent strategy with business strategy by focusing on three core priorities: (1) leadership operating under a shared, articulated vision that cascades from the C‑suite and board to every employee; (2) an end‑to‑end talent development strategy that links recruiting, retention, leadership and employee development to the business vision while ensuring diversity; and (3) built‑in blind‑spot awareness through continuous feedback loops and a culture where feedback is safe and valued. The conversation then shifts to common impediments, such as lack of CEO or senior‑leader buy‑in, the perception of HR as a “necessary evil,” resistance to change, and the mistaken belief that talent problems are merely recruiting issues rather than strategic misalignment. Schultz offers practical, actionable steps for leaders at all levels: CEOs can ask each executive about the company vision and critical functions to surface alignment gaps; managers can create department‑level feedback cultures by openly soliciting input without fear of retaliation; and organizations can break large transformation projects into bite‑size phases to reduce intimidation. Throughout, the dialogue emphasizes that true talent‑centricity requires mindset shifts, consistent modeling by senior leaders, and treating feedback as a contribution rather than a threat. The episode concludes with resources for listeners to learn more about Schultz’s work and Proteus’s leadership services.
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You're listening to the Proteus Leader Show with Erika Andersen, where you'll get practical tools and insights for leading, managing, and staying ready for the future. Erika is the founding partner of Proteus, a firm that focuses uniquely on leader readiness. A nationally known executive coach and bestselling author, you may already know her as one of the most popular leadership bloggers on Forbes.com. Ready for something you can use today? Here's Erika.
Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Proteus Leader Show. My guest today is Carol Schultz, founder and CEO of Vertical Elevation, a consultancy that works with companies to align talent strategy with business strategy. Carol is a talent equity and leadership advisory expert, and she and her team have helped hundreds of organizations create sustainable talent-centric cultures that run at maximum efficiency. She's also the host of the popular podcast Authentically Successful and author of the new book Powered by People: How Talent-Centric Organizations Master Recruitment, Retention, and Revenue, and How to Build One. So welcome to the show, Carol.
Thanks. It's good to be here.
Yes, I'm very excited to have you. I feel like now more than ever in this getting to be a post-pandemic world, leaders really need to understand how to build organizations where people feel safe, feel celebrated, want to stay and want to grow. And I just thought that your insights about how to do that would be especially valuable for our listeners who are, who are trying to create those kinds of organizations themselves.
Yeah, it's, it's, it's sort of an age-old problem. And something I built in 2008, 2009, around then, and It just dawned on me one day that the whole industry, how companies recruited, how they aligned, none of it worked. And it's the internet that really exacerbated the problem.
Yeah. So tell me, so, so you, you say in your book, you talk about these 3 core priorities of talent organizations. I, I, can you explain those to us? I'd love to hear more about that.
Sure. So the first is leadership working under an aligned vision. Everyone can articulate, right? And, and what that means is everything you do drives better experiences for all your people, and it has to start at the C-suite, and, and it really includes the board level.
Yeah, yeah.
Right? Because if your board is not aligned with the executive team or vice versa, then you've got problems at that point. And so that alignment is an alignment of vision, business strategy, If I ask each individual leader at the executive level, what's your vision for this company? I should get the same answer.
Answer, yes.
That's just one of the things that I look at in starting this process around alignment and what alignment looks like in practice. The second—
And just to make sure I understand, and I think you're also saying that that alignment then needs to be cascaded throughout the organization. So if you ask somebody in the line, if you ask a customer service person, correct? More or less the same thing about why we exist, what our vision is?
Correct?
Yeah. Yeah.
So, you know, it starts there, and then it trickles down to the bottom. So if I asked the CEO the same question, you know, what's the vision for the company? And I asked, you know, somebody who's, let's say, you know, been on board for 2, 3 months, I'm gonna, you know, it may not be the same words, but I'll get the same answer.
Yes. Great.
So we're all clear that we are rowing in the same direction here.
Yes. Yes. Okay.
The second is a talent development strategy from recruiting to succession. Again, beyond the C-suite, right? And this includes building diversity so you don't suffer from groupthink. So just because everybody has the same vision doesn't mean you're going to get a bunch of automatons. It just means that we're all clear about where we're going.
Yeah.
Right. So now you build a talent strategy to support the business strategy and vision.
And when you say talent strategy, I assume you mean making sure you get the right people to accomplish that vision, making sure that they're brought into the organization well and continue to be supported as they develop.
And it's all integrated throughout the organization.
That is exactly correct.
Sometimes there are talent strategies, but they live in little pockets and different people are doing it differently.
And then it doesn't work. If you're living in a vacuum or in a siloed organization, you're going to have problems. Yeah.
Yeah. Yes. Okay. Completely agree. That's great.
And then the third piece is, and they don't always, I mean, the first piece, having aligned vision, has to go first. But the third piece basically works off of piece 1 and piece 2, which is built-in blind spot awareness from established feedback loops. So what is a feedback loop? Part of that is having— is building a culture of feedback.
Yes.
And that is literally— I, as someone's subordinate, could talk to my manager about literally anything without being worried about, am I going to lose my job, get thrown under the bus, or something like that? And that's complicated to achieve.
Yeah.
But it absolutely is achievable.
Yeah.
If you have an aligned vision and strategy at the executive level and you start to trickle that down, it's absolutely possible. Because if you see the leaders of the organization really living a culture of feedback, like, I want, as a leader, I want your comments to me, positive or negative, as a contribution. If you really are clear that it's a contribution to you as a leader, it will work.
Yeah. And really, I could not agree more with what you're saying about the importance, because we're in our organization, Proteus, we definitely try and have a feedback-rich culture and support that. And, and we, to your point, we try and help our client companies do that. And the, exactly as you said, the modeling of that by senior leadership is Absolutely essential. It won't have— I agree with you that it won't happen otherwise, because people, they listen to what you say, but they pay much more attention to what you actually do. Right.
Well, yeah, you know, when the rubber meets the road.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, those are great.
It's not, it's not, you know, do as I say, not as I do.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Right. So, you know, and all this is about shifting how you think, and therefore how you work.
Yeah, yes. Yeah. Because your other point, which is that, that underlying mindset of This is a contribution. I don't need to protect myself from it, whether it's positive or negative, whether it's correct. It's a contribution to my understanding and my ability to do my job.
That's right.
That might—
Right. And where that piece fits in at the beginning, right, at the alignment level, is looking at the executives and sitting down with each of these beyond discovery, right?
Yes.
Which is where I discover how aligned are you on a scale of 1 to 10, or how misaligned are you on a scale of 1 to 10? And then to look at, okay, what do we need to do to get from a 5 where we are to a 10?
Yes.
But what, what kind of coaching does that take? What kind of training does that take? You know, you know, who needs, who needs to learn how to communicate more effectively and in, you know, in a different way to be more effective? People don't necessarily look at the language that they use.
Yeah.
The exact words and how those words land in, in the world of someone else.
Yeah, let's— so let's riff off of that. Let's go to the dark side, kind of. What are some of the impediments as you do this discovery and you find out? What do you see as the biggest things that are likely to get in the way of creating a talent-centric organization?
Well, it has to— I mean, it has to work from the CEO, right? The only person who can bring me in is the CEO or the founder.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
HR does not— I mean, HR can champion it, but Unfortunately, so many people, so many executives look at HR as a need-to-have. Well, as sort of a necessary evil. You know, at least that's from feedback I've had for 30 years from people. And I'm not here to bash human resources. They do a very valuable job.
So you're saying that even if HR or somebody else is the champion, the CEO has to be totally on board, totally It can't work otherwise.
I mean, I last year had a conversation with a CHRO who said to me, you know, they're really looking for leadership training and development and coaching for their executive team. And I said, well, here's how— here's what that looks like. Okay. And she goes, well, our CEO, who happened to be the founder, he founded the company when he was like in his 20s.
Right.
They had fired the prior CEO. So, he had stepped in to take over. I think they were going to look for a new CEO. He and the CFO absolutely were unwilling to Wow. Can't work.
Yeah. Yeah.
That if they're willing to have a conversation with me about what that looks like and, and to be open to at least that conversation, right? I mean, I can't— if somebody's unwilling to open the door, I can't walk through it. Right.
No.
And I think part of the problem, Erika, is that people don't understand what coaching actually is. Most people. I mean, any— you know, it's a low barrier to entry. Yeah, you get fired from your 30-year career. Oh, I can go be a coach. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or, you know, or I've had people that, yeah, I'm a coach. I took one, one, you know, 2-month course at Tony Robbins. No, doesn't make you a coach.
Right, exactly.
So, um, or in anything else that you might, you know, be an expert at.
So lack of that most senior-level buy-in is a huge impediment. What are some other organizational impediments that you see to having a truly talent-centric organization?
The possibility that because it's a process, the alignment at the executive level happens. It's kind of like a land and expand model, right? So I can go in, I could be hired to do discovery. And after discovery, I can make my recommendations. Here's what needs to happen. So what an impediment might be is, oh gosh, Carol, really? It's going to take us a year to get to talent centricity?
Oh, they want it to be a quick fix. I mean, they may or they may Yeah.
But if they do, they have the commitment.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
To spend the next year. And that doesn't mean, you know, the next year that I'm with them full time.
Right, right, right.
No, because each thing, it gets, you know, we take it in stages. But they may look at that and go, oh gosh, that's a long time to take.
That's a long time. Yeah, I think that's true. I mean, as we've— what we've seen is that's true of any kind of change. Of course. So often they want to go, really, it's gonna take a year or 2 years? We do it in 3 weeks. No, we can't. Sorry.
Yeah.
Okay. That's very helpful.
And you can, you know, you can take it and bite it off in smaller chunks.
Yes.
You make it a little less intimidating.
Yeah.
Well, you know, so this piece, so when it comes to the talent strategy, well, let's see, how are you currently, you know, how are you currently, what is your talent strategy?
Right.
Who's doing it? Are you hiring agencies? Are you, do you have internal recruiters? Are those, you know, do any of them know what they're doing?
Right.
And what kind of training is that going to take for me to train them and teach them this is what old-fashioned headhunting looks like?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
This is how you get people to engage people, et cetera.
So bit by bit, you tell them, okay, well, you could do this. Okay, great. That's very helpful. So, you know, we always want to offer practical takeaways to our listeners. So what are some things our listeners can start doing, like, right now, you know, with their teams to build an organization that really puts people first?
Yeah. The first thing you can do as a CEO is ask each member of your executive team individually what their vision is for the company.
Yeah.
Look at the answers you get. I mean, they can ask the same question and ask— that's one of the questions. Another question is to ask each of those members, what department or function of the company do you believe is the most important to our success?
Oh, interesting.
All kinds of interesting answers. Yeah, right. Um, and if you don't get the same answer from everybody, it tells me you're out of alignment, right?
And you got to have more conversations.
And you've got to have more conversations about it, right? And you want to do this individually. And, and it's very important to be clear, um, whoever's asking, if it's a CEO or, you know, if you've brought in a third party that's less intimidating, maybe And if, and if the CEO can't have these, it tells me that they're not aligned.
Yeah.
And it tells me that they do not have a culture of feedback.
Yes. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Okay.
So sometimes, you know, so what, what an executive can do at that point, CEO, founder, whoever's asking this question, prior to asking the questions, make it really clear to each member that this is not— I'm not asking this to fire you, to berate you. This is all about where we are from a standpoint of are we aligned and where do we need To go to get from point A to point B.
Yes. We're just trying to figure out where we are now. That's great.
Right. Right.
So I love, I love what you're saying. And I would say that most of our listeners are probably not CEOs or founders. So what can a mid-level or senior-level manager do in his or her, with his team, with his or her organization to make sure that he or she is operating in a people-first, more talent-centric way?
Well, I mean, you can build your own in your department. You can build your own culture of feedback.
Yeah.
By sitting down with everybody and saying, look, here's— I want to be a better leader. I want, I want you to see me as a better leader because people don't leave companies, they leave their managers.
Yes, yes.
So consequently, to say to someone, hey, uh, to your team, hey, I want— to help me be better, I want you to bring— I want you to give me feedback.
Yeah.
Um, as a leader, what, what's not working for you? Not what am I doing wrong? That's more judgmental.
Yes. What's wrong?
What, you know, what am I doing that's not been effective in helping manage you? What can I do to more effectively manage you so that we do better? I want the feedback. There is nothing you can't— there is nothing you can say to me that will have me throw you under a bus or bite back at you. Nothing.
Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And both those— your questions are wonderful. And also that what you just said, the second thing of like, It is having asked the questions. It's absolutely essential that the person get no negative repercussions from having asked that question. That's right. You'll lose all your—
Super, super important. And I do want to step back. There was one, there was one point I wanted to mention when you asked about the impediments, right? Some of the things that kind of get in the way. And we talked about, you know, really leadership not being open to change and growth, right? Which, you know, not having culture feedback. And the third piece is actually thinking they have a recruiting problem when really what they have is a strategy problem.
Yeah, yeah.
I wanted, I wanted to put that in because that's super important.
Yeah, that's great. And that's actually good advice to leaders too. If you have a problem on your team, don't just assume it's some superficial, oh, it's a recruiting problem.
Never a recruiting problem.
Look at the culture. Oh, that's great.
Yeah. And I don't say, I don't use the word never lightly. It's really just never that. I mean, it's, it's, it's a strategy. It's an overall strategy problem. You can blame your recruiters, but why do you have recruiters that can't do their job? Because they haven't been trained. There's something wrong with the strategy.
They're not—
something's not working.
All that.
Yeah.
That's right. Oh man, that's great. Oh, Carol, I feel like we could keep talking for another hour, but I always promise that I'm going to keep it short and sweet for my listeners. So thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me.
My pleasure.
I appreciate it. And listeners, to find out more about Carol's work or to buy a copy of Powered by People, just go to her website at verticalelevation.com. And if you'd like to find out how Proteus supports leaders to be even more effective in these crazy times, you're welcome to go to proteusleader.com, click on topics and choose Change from the Inside Out. So thank you again, Carol. Thank you for listening, everyone. And until next time.
Bye.
Here's to creating the life you truly want.
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